Review Replay, HttT Isle of Anduin

[fredbobsmith2]

Hey all

I was playing the above scenario a while ago. Due to feedback on my recent topic on wesnoth mentoring, I've decided to submit this replay to the scrutiny of my fellow (and probably better)
peers. Any feedback, tactical or strategical, would be very appreciated. Yes, I realize it is an easy scenario, but that does not mean that one can not do a bad job of it (I think). A poor player has to play an easier scenario first.

[Anonymissimus]

You finished 8 turns early instead of harvesting experience. If you posess all villages and there are enough of them to push unit maintenance costs to zero there's no reason to finish early at all. (There could be set an extra bonus but I know of no such scenarios.)

[Velensk]

When I had posted I had origionally meant multiplayer games though there is no reason I cannot review campaign replays. My advice is less likely to be useful in campaigns as campaigns frequently deal with specialised situations and there are frequently many approaches that are all more than adequete.

Turn 1: No comment.

Turn 2: If you want to fight in the south flank as anything more than a distraction you would need to send more elves south than that.

Turn 3: If the scenario was harder I would advice you to keep konrad near the keep to reinforce a little however as you actually outnumber your foe on this difficulty there’s not really much point.

Turn 4: No Comment

Turn 5: When pulling back you could easilly have grabbed a couple more villages while you were at it, it was not like from your position you needed to fear the immediate attack.

Turn 6: No comment.

Turn 7: No comment.

Turn 8: No comment

Turn 9: No comment.

Turn 10: The scenario is pratically over.

Overall: There is not much to say here. Your tactics and strategy were easilly enough to defeat your dimunitive oppponent. You were never in danger of losing, infact I don’t think you ever were very much in danger of losing a single unit (there was a moment for one of the scouts but very low odds). All I can really say is that if you want me to find things for you to work on it would be better if you pick a replay where you need to do something more than just walk through an enemy both weaker than yourself and controlled by the AI.

I disdain experiance harvesting techniques and do not use them but as Anonymissimus pointed out as long as you control every village on the map there is really no pratical reason not to.

[fredbobsmith2]

Hmm, I tried the experience farming technique, but I was not particularly careful about keeping the enemy leader alive, so at the last turn that elvish scout accidentally killed him. Yes, the two scouts down south were there mainly as a distraction, and to grab the villages in that area. As for keeping Konrad at the keep, I felt that by the time I would have recruited enough units to make a difference, the lack of his leadership would probably have negated it. I suppose I should have grabbed the villages during the retreat; I just felt absurdly cautious for some reason. Yes, the next time I post a replay I will try to find a harder scenario, or a multiplayer match, though I personally feel that I will be crushed and there will not be much to analyze.

[Velensk]

On the contrary, you being crushed would make it a very good replay to analyze.

This isn't Starcraft where 'being good' implies a high APM to the point where we look at the replay and say, 'uh, yeah. he won because he is awesome enough to click things three times as fast as you so you couldn't keep up with him'. If you find yourself in a disadvantageous position it is most likely because of mistakes you made and that is the stuff that is easiest to help people with. Now there are ways where you can find yourself dealt a poor hand through no fault of your own and in those situations we can tell you how we would try to deal with it. If you look through the replays I've picked apart over time I think you'll find that many of my most constructive replies were for games that the player lost as there is a lot more to say about it than 'your opponent was incompetent and you were not as incompetent'.

[fredbobsmith2]

Here is a multiplayer match with me as red loyals. Other than the obvious and fatal error of not retreating, what else did I do wrong?

[monochromatic]

A quick tip: if you want to see your mp skills improve, don't play Isar's Cross. That map creates many bad habits, for example the 'fatal error' you listed above.

[Velensk]

I will get around to disecting this in a moment but first another note: Isars Cross is not a very balanced map or a particuarly good one for this kind of analysis. It is very small and your strategic options are very limited (which is why it creates the habits elvish_soverign listed. Also, the size gives it a few dynamics which although not inherantly bad give way to gameplay that is not in common with most other maps. Since I didn’t mention this before let me point out a few other maps that I would prefer if you did not give me replays for as the advice that applies to them is less useful to general practices than pretty much any other map you can get.
-Any 3p map.
-Any non-standard scenario (such as Dark Forcast or A New Land)
-Cynsaun Battlefield. (Unbalanced/to large for standard advice)
-Lagoon (unique dynamics, potentially unbalanced)
-Morituri (much like isars cross but not as bad)
-Siege Castles (Very asymetric and potentially unbalanced)
-King of the Hill (same as the above)
-The Wilderlands (Very large/wandering monsters)
-Games with more than 4 players.

Note I don't have any problem with you playing any of these (I play some of them myself on occasion) I just would rather not pick them apart for you as it is both harder for me and less useful for you. Anyway,

Turn 1: Cavalry and other scouts are generally not a good idea on this map. They tend to cost more than their fighting abilities are worth due to their speed however speed is considerably less useful on a map this small. You do not need any scouts to reach your full allotment of villages before anyone else can steal any unless p1 also gets a scout but if they do you can probably kill it pretty easy without suffering too much of an income or positional loss.

Turn 2: You did not claim one of your villages in the corner. One big difference between multiplayer and campaigns is that control of villages is extreamly important in multiplayer. On most maps you should have claimed every village you are alloted by turn 3. While you certainly can do that there is little to no reason to not get as many as you can on turn 2.

The replay you posted ends on turn 2. Perhaps you played another game after the first saving the replay over the one you intended to post.

[fredbobsmith2]

Sorry about the replay, it seems to be the wrong one. As for the villages, I did not grab them all since I initially expected a very short game. Hmm, I guess I should have paid more attention and replaced the cavalry with a fencer or something. Here is the correct replay.

This one ended when I blundered in to a bad situation, and decided to try to die with some glory as opposed to retreating, but it was a lost gamble. I refer to where I attack the elf captain.

[Velensk]

No matter how short a game you expect, always, always, always grab your allotment of villages. A village is a swing of 3 gold per turn at standard settings (2 in actual gold, 1 in upkeep reduction). Failing to grab villages turns into a loss of units in ~4 turns. Even on isars cross you are unlikely to end the game in four turns if your opponent is halfway decent and if you’re going to grab a village you might as well grab it earlly before you will really need him at the front and while you’ll get slightly more gold.

Turn 1: Same caution as before. By rearranging your recruit you could have grabbed all your the swamp village between you and purple with the merman without delaying the grab of any other villages.

Turn 2: No comment

Turn 3: Be warned about keeping your leader more than a turn away from his keep even on a map as small as isars cross. Delay in ability to react/reinforce can be lethal.

Turn 4: If you don't start heading back to keep your keep you will be up against continual reinforcements without any.

Turn 5: The mistake was not so much the fact that you took a desperate gamble there as that you took a desperate gamble where even if you win there is very good odds that you will immediately lose right afterward and I would not say that the odds of your ally gaining the uppper hand and redeeming you are looking all that great so either way odds were you lose. Part of the reason why your situation here is bad despite the ToD is that he stayed back on his keep to recruit for an extra turn allowing him to outnumber you so despite your luck, leader, and ToD you only had a slight advantage on the field (though using his leader the way he did was very risk on his part) and whats more, his advantage will keep growing as you will not be able to recruit until you can get your leader home, a very unlikely endevor with blues support.

Turn 6: You’ve already made your fatal mistake and there’s not really going to be much else to say.

[fredbobsmith2]

Thanks very much, I will look in to my recruitment patterns much more carefully. As for the village, yes, I realized later that if I had it, and my leader was closer to the keep, I could have done much better. I also figured at the point where I was surrounded and the elf captain was in front of me that it was a desperate gamble, but I was going to die anyways and if I took him out, he would not have recruited those fighters the next turn. Again thanks for your help; I expect to post more replays in the future if they prove special (or not).